Who

Chris Crawford's Games Sucked

Every so often I mean to write an article about how Chris Crawford doesn’t
know what he’s talking about. It’s pretty impressive, in some ways: his book
on game design, for example, is practically a manual on how to write a sucky
game. And Crawford keeps inspiring me to write this article because every time
he opens his mouth (or uncaps his pen) he says stupid
things.

To take Balance of Power as an example: it wasn’t “innovative”; it was
basically a rehash of Bruce Ketchledge’s 1984 game Geopolitique 1990,
published by SSI. The main difference between the two games is that Crawford
made some changes to suck all of the fun out of it. Specifically, in
Ketchledge’s game, making too many significant mistakes could result in a war,
which the player then had to resolve. In Crawford’s game, making a single
mistake resulted in the game immediately ending with a snotty little lecture
from the programmer ending with “We do not reward failure.”

What. A sanctimonious. Prick.

Who can point me to a single game that Crawford did that had any real
influence beyond handwaving? We are talking, after all, about the man who
developed Scram, a “nuclear plant simulator,” which has the distinction of
being the first game to be so boring that it was literally more fun to go
outside and watch grass grow. The only game Crawford has published that even
deserves to be on the same page as the word “fun” would be his 1981 wargame
Eastern Front. It’s a good game. But not enough to justify his reputation.

Some have pointed out – correctly – that Crawford need not have developed
excellent games (or indeed, any games at all) to proffer opinions on the
gaming industry. Certainly, none of us opining here at Tea Leaves have a
resume that includes professionally published games, and that doesn’t stop us.
But the argument is made, and made often in wanky, uncritical
hagiographies, that Crawford’s
opinion is important because of his “seminal” games and his “genius.” This
is false. Crawford’s ouevre is average at best and mediocre at worst, and
anyone familiar with the game developers writing and publishing games in the
1980s knows this to be true.

Crawford is good at something, but it isn’t game development. It is self
promotion.